With Wyoming and Mississippi about to play out, and a six-week interval between these states and Pennsylvania / North Carolina, it seems clear that the Obama campaign needs to take stock and make changes. The inexorable momentum Obama kept building from Iowa on was seriously slowed in Ohio and Texas, in perception if not in reality. Obama's message of inspiration, hope and change has carried him into the delegate lead but now it seems clear that message needs to be expanded to meet new realities.
At this point Obama has to consolidate his pledged delegate lead, convince Democratic superdelegates to ratify his nomination, and begin the process of defining himself and John McCain for the general election campaign. He has to do all this while fending off a Clinton campaign which is daily proving it will say and do anything to stay in the race. Lastly, he has to manage the inevitable media bias toward looking for trouble among the Democrats and ignoring it with St. John McCain.
Below the fold, I'll look at some of the current realities in the campaign, the challenges going forward, and what Obama might do to manage his campaign. I have no crystal ball, alas, so I look forward to your perspectives and ideas. Tell me where I'm wrong and what I'm forgetting.
Barack Obama faces a finite number of challenges at this point in the campaign:
- His appeals to voters' better natures is interpreted by pundits and opponents as showing a lack of specificity in policies.
- Hillary Clinton has chosen to compare herself to John McCain in order to argue that she is a better opponent for McCain than Obama. This is the basis of her appeal to superdelegates.
- Obama has to unite the divided Democratic party and bring it along with him into the general election campaign.
- John McCain has months to consolidate his party, raise millions of dollars and define himself and his opponents, while Democrats fight amongst themselves.
- The media dynamic of treating Obama as the fresh face is poised to change, as the media internalizes Clinton criticisms that the media is giving Obama a free pass.
- The economy is beginning a fall into what looks to be a long and damaging recession, which voters are much more aware of than the media.
- George Bush has piled up colossal problems for the next president, creating an anxiety among the electorate which works at cross-purposes to Obama's theme of hope.
Each of these challenges offers opportunities for Obama to advance the argument for his candidacy. He has to do so in ways that respect his desire to bring a different style of politics while still meeting the considerable power of the old style of politics. I cannot put words into the mouth of the silver-tongued orator, but here are some themes the Obama campaign might use to meet these challenges.
I. Personalize the hope and change message. Policies on websites are not enough. Obama himself must sell the message that his change is to improve your life. People know things are falling apart, and Obama must convince them that his presidency will make a meaningful difference for them. Obama must emphasize his tax cuts for most Americans, renegotiating trade agreements and corporate taxes to protect American jobs, and a plausible appeal to people worried about being thrown out of their houses. He must focus on building American security rather than starting new wars around the world. He must better explain how he will help Americans get affordable health care. Obama has a great gift of using the word "We" when talking about his campaign. That rhetorical nugget needs to be fleshed out so average voters know precisely what he means.
II. Hillary Clinton is John McCain. Hillary has helpfully been making the case that she'd prefer John McCain to Barack Obama, and that her qualifications are comparable to McCain's. She has solemnly proclaimed that the 2008 election will be all about national security, as John McCain would prefer (IOW, the 2004 campaign redux). Obama should graciously agree with his primary opponent, and agree that Hillary Clinton is indeed a John McCain clone. This allows Obama to use criticisms of McCain to criticize Clinton by aiming those criticisms at McCain and comparing Clinton after the fact. For instance:
John McCain wants us to vote out of fear. He wants us to see radical Islamic terrorists under every bed. He wants us to think that waging wars across the globe will make us safer at home. Hillary Clinton seems to agree with him, and wants our party to run on a platform that we can do it better. I disagree....
Attacking Clinton through McCain promotes party unity by focusing on John McCain, and chides Clinton for taking the opposite tactic. It feeds into an argument that Obama is an uniting figure for the party, while Clinton is divisive. This is an important argument for voters and for superdelegates.
III. John McCain is George W. Bush. George Bush is so deeply unpopular that Democrats would have to be crazy not to run against Bush this year. Here too, John McCain has helpfully played into this message. He's just run a primary gauntlet where no disagreement with any of Bush's myriad disastrous policies was permitted. Video clips are profuse and damning for a general election. These should be used freely by surrogates, while Obama takes a slightly different approach. Obama must illustrate clearly where his presidency would be a stark change from Bush's, while using those criticisms of Bush to also criticize McCain. For example:
George Bush wanted us to vote out of fear. He wanted us to see radical Islamic terrorists under every bed. He wanted us to think that waging wars across the globe would make us safer at home. We have seen that Bush was wrong, but John McCain agrees with him and wants you to vote for him so he can do it better. I disagree....
The "third Bush term" for McCain is a potentially lethal message against McCain. It must be elaborated in every possible way.
IV. Define himself and John McCain. McCain's self-definition depends on certain concepts: Maverick, Honest, Tough. Obama and his surrogates must change each of these concepts in voters' minds: McCain is the second coming of George Bush, willing to say and do anything to win, and a dangerous bully who folds under pressure. Numerous examples of each of these counter-narratives are readily available, and clips of well-known Republicans illustrating those counter-narratives are freely available. Obama, meanwhile, must take on McCain's desired virtues himself, using his own words and examples. His grassroots campaign, his refusal to take lobbyist money, his innocence of the deeply corrupt Washington system, his biography will all be useful in defining himself against McCain, and thereby taking away McCain's perceived strengths. Lastly, Obama must contrast his level-headedness against McCain's volatile temper, and ask Americans what kind of President would allow them to sleep better at night.
V. Emphasize an economic populist agenda. The victimization of millions of Americans by job outsourcing, predatory lending, tax policies that shift wealth to the top, and lies that lull them into submission should be the central issue of this election. The unfolding recession all but guarantees it. John McCain is a self-professed economic blockhead, and his economic pronouncements have so far been straight Club for Growth orthodoxy. Barack Obama faces a delicate balancing act here: he is a positive, optimistic figure, but he must learn how to sustain that while harnessing the potential anger of voters against those who have stolen their patrimony blind. Class has to re-enter American politics. Rebuilding the middle class and helping poorer and working class Americans is Obama's goal here, but emphasizing the growing income disparities in America and frankly explaining how Republican economic policies have fostered those disparities is a vital part of the message.
VI. Remember Franklin Roosevelt, the Happy Warrior. Franklin Roosevelt's message of hope in the darkest of days should be Barack Obama's constant object of study in these days. Roosevelt faced far bigger challenges than we do today when he took office, but he recognized the power of the message of hope. He also recognized the power of the opponents of hope, and met them in battle with craftiness and gusto. In a diary recently I quoted from Roosevelt's Second Inaugural Address:
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world.
In this quote Roosevelt manages to savagely dismiss his political opponents while delivering a message of hope to the wide populace. Barack Obama is a great orator, but his political worldview has not yet achieved anything like the sophistication of Roosevelt's. Fortunately for Obama, he has Roosevelt as a priceless example. The optimism, relentlessness and subtlety of Roosevelt's administration in meeting challenges not unlike today's should be an inspiration to Obama.
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Barack Obama has scored great success so far in this primary season with his appeals to hope and change. It has brought him to front-runner status in the Democratic race. But now Obama faces the challenges of adding substance, depth, and strategic sophistication to his campaign. Melding his responses into a logically coherent whole which is consistent with Obama's political philosophy and goals will be his task for upcoming weeks. His campaign will have to be strategically sophisticated in messaging, using subordinates and spokespeople effectively, and sequencing his appeals in ways that anticipate events and attacks before they occur.
Whether or not we get a President Obama will likely depend on his success in meeting these challenges. The purpose of this diary is to explore how he might do this, and I hope to create a yardstick against which we can measure his campaign's progress. I look forward to your perspectives, if you've managed to read this far.